Dual wielding
Dual Wielding is one of the wield styles in EverQuest. It consists of wielding two one-handed weapons at the same time. The ability to wield a weapon in the secondary hand at all is directly tied to the dual wield skill, and a character's proficiency in that skill determines how often the secondary weapon will actually swing. Strengths and Weaknesses Strengths Compared to other wield styles, dual wielding produces a high number of swings at a fast pace, which synergizes strongly with effects that increase the damage dealt by each melee swing by a flat amount (such as Third Spire of the Minstrels or Shared Bloodlust) and with effects that reduce weapon delay by a flat amount while active, such as Quick Time or Speed Focus Discipline. The secondary weapon also has a chance to trigger melee combat proc effects at half the rate of the primary weapon, which makes dual wielding benefit more than other wield styles from effects like the bard's Song of the Storm or the ranger's self-only lightning proc buffs. Finally, the high number of swings tends to make dual wielding's DPS more consistent than that found in [handing setups, due to producing a larger sample size of hits. Weaknesses Dual wielding does have its downsides relative to other styles. Most importantly from a DPS perspective, dual wielding makes weaker use of effects that provide a bonus to chance to flurry than two handing does, since a flurry's bonus attacks are made with the primary weapon only. Dual wielding has poor synergy with autoriposte disciplines, and with riposte DPS in general. Since riposte damage always comes from the primary hand, two handing is near-inarguably better for optimizing its DPS. For warriors with the Shield Specialist AAs purchased, the amplified damage on the primary hand means that even a sword and board setup is better than dual wielding when it comes to maximizing riposte damage. Dual wielding also tends to produce fewer sudden bursts of heavy damage (lucky, high-damage crits mean less when dual wielding than they do on a two-handed weapon of equivalent tier), which can make the style both less interesting and less efficient to use overall when clearing trash or doing a lesson burn in a party that also has enough damaging spellcasters to finish off mobs with on-demand damage anyway even if the melee fighters are getting unlucky with their damage rolls. This, however, varies in its significance. Other situational downsides include increased vulnerability to taking heavy damage from riposte, damage shield and reverse damage shield effects. (Riposte damage can, however, be entirely negated by standing behind the target or by purchasing any of the riposte-enhancement AAs that strangely negate incoming riposte damage, such as Warlord's Return Kick.) There is also the practical problem of weapon availability: optimizing one's dual wielding does entail upgrading two weapons rather than just one. Strategic Preference Among Classes Rogues dual wield almost exclusively after gaining the ability to do so, as they possess no alternative wield style that even comes close to dual wielding's overall offensive power. Their backstab skill requires using a piercing weapon in the primary hand, but the offhand weapon can be of any one-handed weapon type without penalty. Dual wielding is also typically the highest DPS wield style for monks, beastlords, bards, and rangers, assuming that all weapons being considered are of similar tiers of power and similar amounts of AA investment have been put into the wield styles being considered. In the lower and middle levels, Warriors charged with tanking for a party tend to dual wield for the sake of optimizing hate generation and DPS, since the protective usefulness of shields in that level range is limited. Once the Shield Block AA arrives in the level 66 to 70 range, this dominance begins to shift, with the shield earning its keep more and more as an important part of tanking difficult foes. Eventually, once the Shield Specialist and Improved Shield Specialist AAs are available, the warrior puts dual wielding away altogether in favor of simply using a sword and board wield style, as the hate and damage bonuses to the warrior's primary hand weapon swings (when there is a shield in the secondary hand) become large enough to offset (or even outright surpass) the losses from bagging the other weapon. Paladins, shadow knights, berserkers, and all priest and caster classes cannot dual wield at all. Some passive AAs exclusively improve dual wielding but not other wield styles. These include Ambidexterity and Sinister Strikes, among others.